No Black Altars
by Swellison
Summary: Dean's encounter with the Reaper in Nebraska leaves him with Sam's problem: nightmares. Season 1 story, tag to Faith.
1. Chapter 1

No Black Altars

Tag to Faith, some dialogue written by Sera Gamble and Raelle Tucker

By Swellison

Dean Winchester followed his younger but taller brother through the doorway, closing their motel room door behind him. They had left Nebraska mid-morning and reached Rapid City by nightfall, after an almost full day of driving. Dean had driven the second stretch, so Sam had checked them into the South Dakota roadside motel. He'd also copped the bed closer to the door, Dean discovered as he spotted Sam's suitcase on top of the nearer red, white and blue bedspread in the Americana-themed motel room. He glanced towards the "kitchenette" - an upper and lower cupboard with an outmoded push button microwave on its countertop and a cramped dining room table with four straight back chairs, located to the left of the door - where Sam was unloading and rearranging their meager food supply. "Sam--"

Sam deposited a box of crackers on the counter and turned to face him. "Humor me, will ya?" he asked, giving a quarter nod in emphasis, a silent "Dean, please" that Dean had been caving into since childhood. "Just for tonight."

And the two nights they'd spent in Nebraska, Dean thought wearily, remembering his brother had insisted that Dean take the more protected, window side bed there, too. He really didn't want to think about Nebraska, though. "All right." Dean crossed the room and plunked his own suitcase on top of the bed next to the window. "Tomorrow, we swap beds."

"Yeah. Back to business as usual, and we can start investigating the Creek Bottom Creep."

"What self-respecting ghost would let itself be called by that name, anyway?" Dean asked, still puzzled by the locals' name for the monster in their midst. He unzipped his suitcase and began transferring his clothes to the dresser along the far wall. His father had taught him from an early age that your base of operations was your comfort zone, and the more settled and lived-in it was, the better. Besides, an always-packed suitcase made the motel staff uneasy, a well lived-in room allayed their fears of guests sneaking off into the night leaving unpaid bills behind them.

"Dunno. Maybe they thought by disparaging the ghost with a moronic name, they would make it less menacing."

"Or more pissed." Dean recalled Sam reading aloud some of the havoc wrought by the Creek Bottom Creep from the laptop during their drive.

"As you've said before, who knows what ghosts think?" Sam abandoned the topic of work. "Are you hungry? You only had a chocolate shake on the road. I can fix you" - he glanced at the assorted boxed and canned items on the counter - "something for dinner."

"No, I'm good."

"Or we could order a pizza?"

"I'm not hungry."

Sam opened his mouth to speak, but Dean shushed him. "Drop it. I'll have an extra large bowl of Wheaties tomorrow morning, okay?"

"Okay." Sam turned around, leaning against the bottom half of the cupboard. "You want to" - Dean slammed the drawer shut on his last pair of jeans and glared at his brother. He so did not want to talk about Roy LeGrange, or Nebraska, or any of it.

Sam's last words surprised him. "--play cards?"

Dean blinked. It was Monday night and there was crap-all on television. A cable movie didn't sound the least bit appealing, either. "Okay."

Sam grinned. "I'll get the cribbage board." In three steps, he'd reached the bed, rummaged in his suitcase and extracted the cribbage board and a deck of cards. He sat down at the table, removed the cards from their package and began to shuffle. The Winchester boys excelled at card games. John had started them out with kid's games like war, PIG, and Crazy Eights, as an easy, cheap and mostly quiet way to keep them amused. They had graduated to hearts, spades, cribbage and fifty-seven different varieties of poker. Dean honed his poker playing skills on Sam, who hated to lose at anything. This led to some intense poker rounds between them. During one game, Sam had tried to psych Dean out with a kid's picture deck instead of a standard deck of cards, the same deck of _The Incredibles_-themed cards that he currently shuffled. Dean had won most of the rounds and considered the cards lucky, letting it slip that he'd watched and enjoyed the Disney cartoon movie. Sam figured Dean could empathize with Bob Parr, the marginalized superhero who only wanted to do the right thing and save the world, but he had wisely kept his thoughts to himself.

Dean sat across the table from Sam and the cribbage game began. At first, Dean was tense, expecting Sam to ply him with unwanted conversation, but Sam's comments only concerned the game.

"Seven." Dean put the first card down, a seven of hearts with a picture of Dash where the pattern of seven hearts would be on a normal card.

"Fifteen for two," Sam's eight of clubs showed Violet in spider-tiptoeing mode. He moved his peg up two holes on the 29-shaped cribbage board.

"Twenty-four for three." Dean's nine of spades showed Helen with one elongated arm reaching for the spade under the nine. Sam grunted while Dean pegged his points for the run.

"Thirty-one for five." Sam placed another seven, the seven of clubs down and pegged his five points.

"Huh. Four," Dean's four of hearts showed the villain, but Sam couldn't peg a fifteen off of a four.

The game continued with the lead seesawing back and forth. Sam rose from the table to get a snack while Dean counted his crib and started shuffling for the next hand. Sam returned with a bowl of trail mix, which he set to his left, in the center of the table. By the start of the second game, Dean was also nibbling on handfuls of trail mix, as Sam had intended. They whiled away almost three hours, simply playing cribbage. Sam counted his current hand. "Fifteen two, four, six a pair is eight and the right Jack is nine- that puts me over the finish line, again."

Dean glanced at his fourteen-point hand, which didn't count, since Sam had just won the game. Just for the heck of it, he turned over the cards in his equally useless crib: six more points. "Figures."

"Ready for round seven?" Sam picked up the cards and started shuffling the deck.

"No, I've had enough cribbage for now."

"You wanna watch TV? It's too early for the creature feature, but there must be something watchable on." Sam and Dean had quickly learned that even the bottom-rung motels they sometimes frequented had free cable television going for them.

"No. Think I'll make it an early night." Dean rose from his chair, and grabbed a pair of pajama bottoms from the dresser. He headed for the bathroom. Sam placed the _Incredibles _playing cards back in their packaging and returned the cards and cribbage board to his suitcase. He collected the laptop and had it up and running on the table by the time Dean finished in the bathroom.

Dean walked by Sam, seeing the functioning laptop. "What'cha doing?"

"Figured I'd surf for a bit, see if I can find any more info on our Creek Bottom Creep."

"Don't work too hard, Sammy. There's plenty of time for that tomorrow."

"I won't. G'night."

"Night," Dean slipped under the patriotic coverlet of the bed closer to the window. Moonlight streamed in through the cheap matchstick shades and flimsy red, white and blue curtains, but he easily tuned the light out. Dean had acquired the military knack of falling asleep in a wide variety of less-than-ideal circumstances, and was soon fast asleep. Eventually, he began to dream and his subconscious revisited the events of the past few days…

* * * * *

_Dean lay on the hospital bed, his head and upper torso raised by the adjustable bed frame for easy television watching. He stared listlessly at the fabric softener commercial now onscreen. When Oprah lets you down, that's got to tell you something, he thought. A tall, bald African-American man dressed in a white lab coat entered the room and Dean dragged his gaze from the television to the doorway with an effort. _

_ "Mr. Berkowitz?" The stethoscope around the man's neck and the clipboard he held on one hand screamed "doctor", but he had kind eyes and a genuine smile as he approached Dean's bed. "I'm Dr. Manning, your cardiologist. How are you feeling?"_

_ "Like crap," Dean said honestly. "Everything makes me tired and my chest aches like a sonovabitch." He sighed, not used to the croaking quality of his voice, or the fact that even talking was wearing. "And you're about to tell me why, aren't you?"_

_ "Do you remember what happened?"_

_ Dean chose his words carefully. "I was electrocuted." That much would be obvious to any medical personnel who had examined him._

_ "Yes." Dr. Manning frowned slightly, "Your brother was a little vague on the details, but the results are indisputable. When you got electrocuted, the electricity caused you to have an M.I., a myocardial infarction. Do you know what that means?"_

_ "Not exactly." _

_ "It's a heart attack. A heart attack causes permanent damage to the heart, some of the person's heart muscle dies. In your case, the attack was massive and the damage is quite extensive. I'm sorry."_

_ Dean looked into the doctor's eyes and wasn't surprised by what he saw there. "Give it to me straight, Doc. What's the bottom line?"_

_ "The bottom line is your situation isn't going to improve, Mr. Berkowitz, it'll only deteriorate. You're a good candidate for a heart transplant, but - the average wait for a transplant is at least seven months, and you don't have that much time." He took a breath and broke the news before Dean had to ask. "You have two weeks, a month at the outside, before your heart gives out completely. I'm very sorry but, beyond making you comfortable, there's nothing else we can do for you. I wish there was."_

_ "By 'making you comfortable', you mean drugs."_

_ "Drug therapy is standard treatment for patients who've had an M.I. Right now, you're on digitoxin, a diuretic and an ACE inhibitor, and I'll be starting you on a beta blocker in a few days. None of these is specifically for pain, though. You said everything makes you tired, earlier. That's a direct result of the heart attack: overwhelming, bone-grinding fatigue. You're young and you were in good physical shape. That isn't the case now, and the more you push yourself, the less time you'll have. Do you understand what I'm saying here?" _

_ "You're not supporting the 'eat, drink and be merry' theory, that's for sure." Dean glanced away from the doctor for a moment, then he met the doctor's sympathetic gaze. "Do me a favor, will you, Doc?"_

_ "Sure."_

_ "Fill my brother in on my condition. And, make sure he understands what you're saying, because he isn't gonna want to hear it - or accept it."_

_* * * * *_

_ Dean shifted in his second row folding chair, listening as the blind Reverend Roy LeGrange got to the meat of his sermon. _

_ "God rewards the good and He punishes the corrupt," Roy proclaimed. "It is the Lord who does the healing here, Friends. The Lord who guides me in choosing who to heal, by helping me see into people's hearts."_

_ "Amen," the seated crowd of followers spoke with loud conviction._

_ "Yeah, right into their wallets," Dean muttered to Sam. _

_ "You think so, young man?" Roy questioned from the podium._

_ "Sorry." Dean had meant that comment for Sam's ears alone._

_ "No, no, don't be. Just watch what you say around a blind man, we got real sharp ears." Roy joked. "What's your name, son?"_

_ "Dean." _

_ "Dean," Roy repeated, then nodded. He raised his hand and beckoned. "I w-want you to come up here with me." The followers started clapping, realizing that the preacher had found his man. _

_ "Nah, it's okay." Dean declined._

_ Sam turned in his seat. "What're you doing?"_

_ "Y-you've come here to be healed, haven't you?" Roy questioned, puzzled by his chosen one's reluctance. _

_ "Well, yeah, but, uh, maybe you should just pick someone else." _

_ "I didn't pick you, Dean," Roy explained carefully. "The Lord did."_

_ Sam was more to the point. "Get up there!" he practically ordered. _

_ Dean rose to his feet and carefully navigated the few feet to the slightly raised stage that Roy and his wife Sue Ann occupied. The short flight of three steps leading up to the stage felt like thirty stories to Dean, and he was grateful when Sue Ann met him halfway, placing her arm around his shoulder in silent encouragement. Somehow, he made it up the steps and stood to the right of Roy, who had taken a step away from his podium, closer to Dean. _

_ "You ready?" Roy asked. _

_ "Yeah," Dean took the opportunity to speak quietly with Roy before things went any further. "Look, no disrespect, but - ah, I'm not exactly a believer."_

_ Roy smiled. "You will be, son, you will be." He raised his voice, "Pray with me, friends!"_

_ Roy rubbed his hands together, then raised both hands in the air, his right one groping for Dean. He came into contact with Dean's shoulder, then his hand worked upwards, skimming over Dean's cheek and settling firmly towards the top of his head. "All right, now. All right, now." Roy repeated and Dean's eyelids felt suddenly heavy, too heavy to keep open. His whole body felt weighted and the slight extra downward pressure Roy exerted on his head contributed to Dean's falling to his knees. He collapsed to the stage floor and vaguely heard another "All right, now."_

_ "Dean!" Sam yelled, jumped out of his seat and charged up onto the stage. He knelt by Dean, hands reaching frantically for Dean's jacket. He grabbed the jacket's front in one hand while his other hand reached behind Dean, cushioning his brother's head as Dean's eyes opened. "Say something!"_

_ Dean's eyes widened as he glanced just beyond Roy. Standing next to the preacher was a man with a shadowed face, wearing a black woolen car coat over a black and tan plaid flannel shirt. The coat's wide black collar was turned up around his neck and the man stared uncompromisingly back at Dean, with instantly recognizable eyes. Eyes that knew him from birth…. Then his father shook his head, turned and walked away, his form slowly dissolving into nothingness. _

_ "Dad?!" Dean whispered in disbelief. _

* * * * *

Dean jerked awake, searching the room, half-expecting to find his father watching him from the foot of his bed. Nothing. He exhaled softly and let his eyes get accustomed to the moonlit motel room. He heard Sam's even breathing from his left side and rolled his head to see Sam peacefully sleeping in the other bed. Dean relaxed, pleased that his stirrings hadn't awoken his brother. Sam deserved every full night of sleep he could get. Without realizing it, Dean fell back asleep himself, returning to his dreams…

* * * * *

A/N: This is another old story of mine, originally published in Road Trips with My Brother #1by Whatever You Do, Don't Press. Sam and Dean playing cribbage is canon, there's a cribbage board on the table in their motel room in Hell House, in the scene where Dean's sprinkling itching powder in Sam's shorts. (I'm not gonna tell you how many times I watched the ep before I noticed the cribbage board, tho'.)


	2. Chapter 2

No Black Altars

_Dean opened the door to their motel room and entered. He threw his keys on the near bed, then stripped off his navy jacket and tossed it on his bed, next to the window. Then he walked past the beds and towards the kitchen area, where Sam sat at the table with his laptop. "What'd you find out?" he asked Sam._

_ Sam didn't meet his eyes. "I'm sorry." _

_ "Sorry about what?" Dean stood to Sam's left, right next to the table._

_ "Marshall Hall died at 4:17," Sam said softly._

_ Dean sighed, suspecting it all along. "The exact time I was healed."_

_ "Yeah, so I put together a list, everyone Roy's healed." Sam held a short stack of papers out to Dean, who took the papers and sat down as Sam continued to explain. "Six people over the past year, and I crosschecked them with the local obits. Every time someone was healed, someone else died. And each time the victim died of the same symptoms LeGrange was healing at the time."_

_ "Someone's healed of cancer, someone else dies of cancer?"_

_ "Somehow, LeGrange is trading a life for another."_

_ "Wait, wait, wait," Dean absently dropped the papers on the tabletop. "So Marshall Hall **died** to save me?"_

_ "Dean… The guy probably would've died anyway, and someone else have been healed."_

_ "You never should've brought me here," Dean shook his head, angry and sad at the same time. He rose from the table, stepping towards the kitchen area. _

_ "Dean, I was just trying to save your life," Sam's voice bled earnestness._

_ "But Sam," Dean was practically shouting, "some guy is dead now, because of me!"_

_ "I didn't know." Sam rose from the table, continuing. "I'm sorry Marshall Hall is dead, believe me." He stepped closer to Dean. "But that wasn't the only result. You're here, alive and kicking: my one hundred percent cured, pain-in-the-ass older brother - and I can **never** be sorry about that." _

_* * * * *_

_ "Dean, it didn't work!" Sam's voice sounded loud and near-panicked over the cell phone. "The Reaper's still coming! Well, I'm telling you. I'm telling you it must not've worked. Roy must not be controlling the thing."_

_ Dean paced in the empty revival tent. "Well, then, who the Hell is?" He glanced around, saw a figure standing beside the left edge of the stage, half-hidden by the piano that sat on the far edge of the slightly raised stage. "Sue Ann!" He snapped the phone shut and thrust it into his coat pocket as he ran down the aisle towards Sue Ann._

_ She had her back to him, facing the tent wall, and he grabbed her by the arm, forcibly turning her around. Dean blinked. As she slowly turned to face him, Sue Ann changed. Her brown sweater coat morphed into a darker brown micro fiber jacket, and the arm he clutched became noticeably thicker as the figure grew several inches taller. Sue Ann's blonde hair became shorter and browner. Dean dropped his hold, recognizing the figure who now stood before him, clutching the Coptic cross pendant on a leather strap around his neck. "Sam?!"_

* * * * *

Dean's dream jolted him to wakefulness, and his eyes snapped open. He glanced at Sam, relieved to find his brother still sleeping, although Sam had appointed himself watchdog for the night. He rolled over on his back and sought to join Sam in sleep. Dean didn't begrudge Sam his deeper-than-usual sleep; it had been a Hell of a week for both of them. A week his subconscious seemed determined to make Dean relive…

* * * * *

_Sam sat on his bed, closer to the motel room's door. "So Roy really believes."_

_ Dean stood by the window, flicking the gauze curtain back as he stared out the window. "I don't think he has any idea what his wife is doing." He dropped the curtain and sat on his bed, facing Sam._

_ "I found this, hidden in the library." Sam held out a small, tattered black leather-bound book. As Dean took the book and scanned through its yellowed pages, he continued. "It's ancient. Written by a priest who went Darkside. There's a binding spell in here for trapping a Reaper."_

_ "Must be a Hell of a spell," Dean said, eyeing the page that had a rough drawing of a Coptic cross on it. _

_ "Yeah. You've got to build a black altar with seriously dark stuff. Bones, human blood."_

_ "To cross a line like that, a preacher's wife," Dean shook his head, fingering the faded blood red bookmark that was attached to the ancient volume. "Black Magic. Murder. Evil."_

_ "Desperate," Sam countered. "He was dying. She'd've done anything - anything - to save him." He met Dean's eyes, squarely. "I get that."_

_ "She was using the binding spell to keep the Reaper away from Roy," Dean said, remembering his talk with LeGrange and his wife. _

_ "Cheating Death," Sam half-snorted. "Literally."_

_* * * * *_

_ "You ready?" Roy asked. _

_ Dean glanced down at Sam, sitting in the second row, eyes blazing with hope. "Yes."_

_ Roy smiled and raised his voice, "Pray with me, friends!"_

_ He rubbed his hands together, then raised both hands in the air, his right one searching for Dean. He came into contact with Dean's shoulder, then his hand skimmed upwards, over Dean's cheek and settling towards the top of his head, fingers splayed. "All right, now. All right, now." Roy repeated and Dean's eyelids felt leaden as they sank shut. The slight pressure that Roy's hand placed on his head sent Dean to his knees. After a few seconds, Dean felt Roy's hand shift slightly, and he thought the blind man was waiting for a signal from him. _

_ "I don't feel any different," Dean's voice was low, but Roy heard him. Then Roy withdrew his hand, which Dean realized he'd been leaning against when he toppled over to land on his back, winded. _

_ "Dean!" Sam leaped from his chair and dashed to the stage, kneeling next to Dean. His hands reached frantically for Dean's jacket, but Dean weakly intercepted him, placing his right hand on Sam's wrist. _

_ "Nothing changed, I don't feel any different," he quietly told Sam. "And I can't get up."_

_ "Don't worry," Sam soothed, placing his left arm around Dean's upper back, he gently lifted Dean into a sitting position. "I've got you." Sam shifted his kneeling position to a crouch, keeping Dean in a sitting position. Then he put Dean's right arm across his shoulders, while sliding his left arm lower, around Dean's waist. "Upsa-daisy," he whispered for Dean's ears alone, then rose to his feet, bringing Dean with him. Then Sam guided him down the steps, letting Dean lean on him as much as he needed to for support. They slowly trudged down the ailse and out of the church tent. _

_ Dean looked at the vast amount of dirt and mud that separated them from the Impala and sighed. _

_ "I can carry you," Sam offered quietly. _

_ "Dude, no, I'll make it." They slowly walked down the muddy pathway to the field where Dean's Impala was parked. Sam opened the passenger door and deposited Dean gently in the front seat._

_ "Don't worry, Dean," Sam said as he buckled Dean into his seatbelt. "I'll think of something else. We've still got time." _

_* * * * *_

_ "Dean." Sam's voice was soft, his eyes shell-shocked._

_ "Yeah," Dean wearily clicked off the remote for the hospital's television and let it fall from his hand onto the crisp hospital sheet. "All right, well, it looks like you're going to leave town without me." _

_ "What are you talking about? I'm not going to leave you here."_

_ "Hey. You better take care of that car, or I swear I'll haunt your ass."_

_ Sam took in Dean's ghostly-white skin and the black smudges under his eyes. Coupled with the wires that led from under Dean's hospital gown to the computerized heart monitoring system in the room's corner, he could almost believe what Dean's doctor had just told him. "I don't think that's funny."_

_ "Ah, c'mon, it's a little funny." When that failed to produce a rise from Sam, Dean got to the heart of the matter. "Look, Sammy, what can I say, man? It's a dangerous gig, I drew the short straw. That's it. End of story."_

_ "Don't talk like that, all right?" Sam said fiercely. "We still have options."_

_ "What options? You have burial or cremation. All in all, I'll take cremation. Go out in a blaze of glory, although not exactly the way I'd pictured it."_

_ "Don't."_

_ "Don't what?"_

_ "Don't give up. Why aren't you fighting this?"_

_ "Sam, I'm a realist--"_

_ "Crap," Sam interrupted. "Dean, you're a fighter. You've been hunting things that are bigger, meaner and stronger than you since you were a teenager, and you usually win - because you don't quit. Why are you quitting now?"_

_  
Dean sighed wearily and tried to get his brother to understand. "I know it's not easy, but I'm gonna die. And you can't stop it."_

_ Sam's eyes glittered with determination and denial. "Watch me."_

* * * * *

"Dean, " Sam's voice interrupted the dream, "Are you awake?"

Dean opened his eyes to see Sam standing over him, in the small space between the two beds. He took in splashes of red white and blue from the room's furnishings and thankfully placed himself. They were in Rapid City, and they'd left Nebraska, Roy LeGrange and the Reaper behind them. Sam, early bird that he was, was already dressed. Dean yawned. "What time is it?"

"A little after six. I didn't mean to wake you so early, but--" Sam floundered, trying not to admit that he'd woken Dean up because he thought his brother had been having a nightmare. After he'd given Dean nothing but pointed "do not disturb" warnings and had downright snarled at Dean to mind his own business a few times, the shoe was on the other foot. He owed Dean the same privacy that he'd insisted on for himself.

"That's okay," Dean rose from the bed. "I need to take a shower, anyway."

"Your Wheaties will be ready by the time you're through."

Dean nodded and disappeared into the bathroom. The hot shower both revived him and gave him time to think. Unlike Sam, he rarely had nightmares, and only occasionally remembered his dreams. When he did, they were important, on some level. By the time he was dressed, Dean thought he had figured out most of what his dreams were trying to tell him.

"Gotta get something from the car," Dean told Sam as he grabbed his keys and left the hotel room. There was enough morning light that he didn't need a flashlight to dig around in the weapons box, and it was still early enough that none of the motel's other residents were out and about.

Dean returned to their room empty-handed. "Hey, d'you have Sue Ann's little Black Arts book?"

"It's in my suitcase," Sam answered, standing in front of the cupboard, where he'd been hunting for cereal boxes.

"I need it."

Sam shrugged, stepped over to his bed and scooped up his suitcase from the floor beside the bed. He unzipped it, fished out the little black book and handed it to Dean.

Dean sat down at the table, eyeing the ancient leather-bound text. He opened it about halfway, laid it on the table and put his left hand firmly on top of the left-hand pages. His right hand grasped a chunk of pages at their top edge, close to the spine.

Sam had grabbed a box of Wheaties and was joining Dean at the table when he saw how Dean held the book. "What're you doing?"

"Destroying it," Dean said, preparing to rip out the first bunch of pages from the book's spine.

"You can't do that!"

Dean bristled. "Watch me."

Now seated, Sam reached across the table and lightly grasped Dean's right hand, keeping him from ripping into the book. "No, I mean you shouldn't."

"Why not?"

"It's too important."

"Too dangerous, you mean. There's a binding spell for capturing a Reaper. That's information no one should have."

"Among _other_ things," Sam stressed, withdrawing his hand. "That book was written by a priest who went Darkside, remember? It's an ancient, authentic text, and we're unlikely to find anything else like it. It's like enemy intelligence during a war, who knows how useful the information could be to us down the road? You can't destroy it, Dean. The knowledge is too valuable, too unique."

Dean sighed, removing his right hand from the opened book to drum his fingers on the table, just this side of his unused ceramic cereal bowl. "Okay, we'll keep the rest of the book, but I'm gonna destroy the pages that have the binding spell for the Reaper." He sat straighter in his chair and started leafing through the text, looking for the right page.

Sam extracted his Swiss Army knife and unfolded the scissors. "Allow me."

Dean passed the book over to Sam and watched as Sam located the desired page and carefully removed it from the book, making the cut as close to the inner spine as possible. He cut out the next page, then folded his knife and slipped it back into his pocket. Sam handed the two extracted pages across the table to Dean.

Dean glared at the pages, wanting to stay as far north of a chick flick moment as possible, but his dreams had reminded him that some words just had to be said. "What happened with the rawhead - it could happen again, and we both know it." He put the first page into his empty cereal bowl, knowing he had Sam's full attention. "But you can't go all Sue Ann on me, Sammy." Dean picked up the second page, lighting the top corner with one of their innumerable Bic cigarette lighters. He dropped the burning sheet of paper into the bowl and watched as the second piece of paper caught fire. "Promise me: no black altars."

Sam watched the words that he'd memorized earlier curl into ashes, then glanced at Dean. He looked deep into his brother's eyes and lied. "No black altars."

The End

A/N: Hope you enjoyed the trip back in time to first season! Reviews are always welcome and appreciated.


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